


Healing Touch

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, Prison, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:14:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29146488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: Rey has been captured by pirates, but she isn't alone in her cell.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 10
Kudos: 28
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Healing Touch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LamiaCalls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LamiaCalls/gifts).



> Content note: character is threatened with rape

Rey wakes with pain. Groggy, gasping, she bites back a whine as the agony in her right shoulder stabs her through like an icy sword, cutting sinew from bone. She was unconscious, blessedly free and away from here. Now her eyes open to a small cell that reeks with waste. The floor is hard and it's a small mercy the spot she's lying in isn't covered with the fetid mess assaulting her nose.

Her memories assert themselves. Her ship was attacked. She thought it was the First Order, but the other ship had been no design she knew of. Pirates. They'd disabled and boarded her ship, stealing everything they could find. She'd left her lightsaber back at the base. She can't remember why now, not with the throb in her temple. It seemed like a good idea then. Maybe she could have defended herself better. Maybe they've have stolen that, too.

They'd dragged her back here with them. She remembers awakening from a stun blast into pain as the pirates had shoved at her with pain sticks for fun. One had wrenched her arm hard and she'd blacked out from the pain.

Cool terror grips her stomach. They're leaving her alive for a reason. "King gets his share first," one had told another, slapping a hand reaching for her breast. "Then we play."

The pirate king, whoever he is, wants her for his own use first. Rey has little doubt of what that means. She's fought off assailants before back on Jakku, back when no one had her back or would have cared if some scrawny scavenger had been pushed face-first into the sand as she struggled, bile in her throat while some man took his pleasure from her. No one would have helped her, so she'd learned to fight, and she'd been lucky enough to escape each time.

Rey looks around the cell now, full of terror and hope. There has to be some way out.

"You're frightened," says the voice she wants to hear least right now. "Why?"

"None of your business." Rey gets to her feet and fights back a cry of pain as she jostles her shoulder.

"You've been injured."

"I'm fine," she bites off, and presses her left hand against the door. Perhaps she can use the Force to unlock it.

"Tell me where you are," Ben says. No. Kylo Ren. She can't let herself think of him as Ben.

Rey prods the lock with her powers. She doesn't know how to make this work. "On Coruscant. I'm shopping on High Street with Finn. We're buying matching jumpers." The electronics are as invisible to her as musical notes. She knows the current is there but she can't touch it to manipulate the flow and break the connection.

"Odd. My last Intelligence report said the Resistance was sighted in the Ordol Cluster."

She doesn't let her face show recognition. The new base is there. If Kylo discovers this, he'll send his squadrons to eradicate them. "There's a nice jumper in plum and gold."

"You'd look nice in just a jumper."

Rey can't hide her shudder. She turns and glares at him. "Go away."

Looking at him is worse. Kylo stands in the cell like he's locked in there with her, his head tilted as though he's examining her. "How did they hurt you?"

"I told you I'm fine."

He ignores her hard words, approaching her. Rey steps back until she's touching the cell wall and can't retreat further. She doesn't want him touching her, but he's removed his gloves and dropped them out of sight. His bare hand takes delicate hold of her shoulder. As she holds in another gasp, she sees the pain mirrored over his face. The bond between them is like this sometimes when they touch. Pain isn't the sensation they usually share, and she sees the most recent memory dart across his face.

"You need bacta and rest."

"I need you to leave me alone so I can find a way out of here." She instantly regrets the words.

"You're imprisoned and injured." His face contorts, moving the dark spots she finds so distracting all around. There's something like caring written on his skin, huddled under a contempt he can't be bothered to layer overtop properly.

"Jealous you couldn't do it yourself?"

"No. But I am displeased. I'm the one who's going to kill you, Rey. Not some petty thief."

"Pirate king."

She watches him file the information away. He'll use it to narrow down her location. "You know what pirates do to their prisoners, and they'll kill you after they finish."

She knows. She wipes the horror from her voice. "These are going to let me go as soon as I use the mind trick on them."

"If that would have worked, you'd have tried it already. They have you, and the pirate king is coming to collect his payment from you." He's maddening. Rey doesn't like it when he's giving in to his rages or his petty bitternesses but she likes it even less when he manages to hold still for thirty seconds and use his brain. He's dangerous then, not only because he might use what he knows to strike at Rey and her friends, but also because in those moments, she can see Ben Solo struggling to break free of his darker twin. He sounds like he cares about her, about her health and welfare.

"I fought you and won. I can fight him."

"Let me see your shoulder." She goes to pull away again, then chooses not to bother. Kylo's hand founds her tender flesh, prodding gently as she squirms. He turns away, striding to the other side of the cell, returning with something in his hand. "Hold still."

Bacta spray, warm and soothing, drifts over her injured shoulder. Without asking, he applies more to the bruises along her arms. Rey feels the medicine sinking into her, mending torn flesh. He adds a second spray to her shoulder. Life returns to her right arm as the pain melts away.

"Thank you," she says, and means it.

"It's nothing," he says, and the crooked smile is all Ben. Rey wants to hold onto that, but she can't. Ben is a fantasy, a wish she keeps making every time she meets Kylo this way in the secret world where their powers flow together.

"If you told me your location, I could send in a squadron to retrieve you." His offer is the hook at the end of the sentence, the same offer as always. And as always, she shakes her head.

"I wouldn't tell you even if I knew where I am."

His face darkens again. She expects a storm, braces for it. Her friends are used to watching her shout at mist and punch air. Perhaps her captors will think her mad and set her free.

Instead of shouting, he turns to look past her. He can't see her environs any more than she can see his ship. "How big is the cell? I assume you're in a cell."

"Three meters square."

"Squalid?"

She shrugs. The gesture doesn't hurt at all. "I've stayed in cleaner."

"But you can't pick the lock?"

"It's electronic. Do you know how to use the Force to move electrons?"

He stares at the door, although he doesn't know that. What she knows of Ben is still under there, but it's Kylo's mercurial superiority speaking when he says, "Who cares? Electronics only tell the bars where to slide. Tell them otherwise."

Rey turns back to the door. Her mind was clouded by grogginess and pain when she woke. Now she understands what he means, and realizes she should have thought of it sooner. She doesn't need to care about the signals commanding the tumblers, she needs to move the physical barriers holding the lock shut. Ignoring her companion, despite his warmth against her back, she closes her eyes and reaches out with the Force, sensing the metal bars slid into place, matched like teeth. There's a tingling power holding them into place but she pushes harder and the metal grinds open inside the locking mechanism.

"Easy," he says, and it's with Ben's delighted, almost proud smile. 

Rey uses her senses to check the corridor. She doesn't have a guard. She looks back at him, and knowing she shouldn't waste the time, she grabs his neck and presses her lips against his jaw. She feels the pulse between them, a crackle that's part Force and part something neither of them has the strength to name. She always refuses his offer, and he always feels the thought pass from her mind to his that she wishes things were otherwise.

Rey turns and runs. She'll get out of here, find her ship or steal another. She's going to escape again, going to live again.

And the next time he asks, she'll consider saying yes.


End file.
